Rating: 
Summary: Audio version a joke
Review: This refers to the unabridged audio version of 'Clear and Present Danger'. The book is very long, and the way they squeeze it into a series of cassettes is bogus. They accomplish this feat in two ways. First, they use your tape player's balance control to get 2 sets of dialog on each side of each tape. Which means you listen to the left speaker and then the right, with a little bleed over so that you can't help but hear a little from the other speaker. But the biggest complaint is that the narrator speaks as fast as he possibly can to finish the book. It's unnatural sounding and not pleasant to listen to. Bottom line: Don't buy the unabridged audio book.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like Clancy, you'll like Clear and Present Danger
Review: A typical Tom Clancy book. The details can be overwhelming at times, and sometimes bog down the story, but then again, that is Tom Clancy! His development of characters is superb and the last 1/4 of the book will keep you on the edge of your seat. Probably the most entertaining story in the book, is about Chavez, a Special Ops agent who, along with a team, is secretly brought to Columbia to help combat the drug lords. Clancy's vivid descriptions of the teams encounters in Columbia is excellent. Overall, a very good book. I'm now starting at the beginning of the Jack Ryan series by reading The Hunt for Red October.
Rating: 
Summary: Drug Warriors
Review: Probably the most reflective of all of Clancy's books, this tells the story of what would happen if the "cold" war on drugs developed into a "hot" war. Was turned into a decidedly skeptical film. The most cogent narrative takes place in the early stages, on board the coast guard cutter. Also features lots of derring-do on board Pave Low helicopters, if you're into that sort of thing.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of the Bunch
Review: "Clear and Present Danger" is the best of Clancy's novels. I find it amazing that Clancy can conceive a storyline and more often than not that story comes to fruition in real life. I decided to read this one even though I had seen the movie and was astonished at how far the movie strayed from the book. The book is so much better with so much more detail (obviously) and a much more fluid storyline. I have read most of Clancy's novels and this one is the best of the Ryan series and probably my favorite of them all.
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Summary: Collateral Damage
Review: First of all, I have to make it CLEAR indeed: This book is not about what it may appear it is about at first. It's NOT about drug wars, it's NOT about cartels, it's NOT about special operations. Well, it has all that but the main things are different. Most of all, this book is about justice and honour. That makes it a very good book. You may read the basic plot substance elsewhere,. My review will concentrate on those moral issues that Clancy brings up here. For example, what do you do to people who slaughter a family, making the husband watch them kill the wife and two little children before killing him (and rape the wife before that also), chop the bodies into tiny pieces to feed the sharks and you know they will get away with it if they get a good lawyer? Do you execute them yourself? Is it justice? YES. Is it lawful? NO. So, here Clancy brings us to one of the most controversial and difficult moral issues in modern society: LAW AND JUSTICE SOMETIMES GO IN DIFFERENT WAYS. Those who bring justice may themselves get severely punished by law. Surprisingly, the criminal society is on the contrary far more effective in terms of justice in these cases, no matter how strange it may sound. Those who slaughter little children simply do not make it out alive from prisons. Criminals do what attorneys cannot. But as an FBI agent, what do you do to a captain of a boat who obtained evidence from a suspect in an unlawful way, but who you think was right? Do you report to your seniors or do you let the man go? ISSUE #2: CONSCIENCE AND DUTY MAY NOT ALWAYS AGREE. And it's a very tough decision. Is it justifiable to invade an independent country to protect the interests of your own? Sometimes. But to win the elections? No. What about killing drug lords without avoiding "collateral damage"? "Collateral damage" are two heartless words behind which lie lives of innocent women and children. How will your conscience bear the fact that you (perhaps) inintentionally killed kids to "reduce the flow of drugs" into your country? Certainly a moral dilemma worth thinking about. And, near the end of the book, Clancy shows that in all governments here are people who only try to protect their careers, who will stop at nothing to avoid exposure to the media. These are traitors who are even able to sell their own soldiers--still kids under thirty in fact--who fight for them and give their lives away for them. That is the sad truth. Bottom line: Clear and Present Danger provides a lot of food for thought. It's not that exciting and sometimes A BIT boring BUT it opens your eyes on many difficult issues and imperfection of the world we live in. I think it still deserves five stars since it's not just mindless action-packed entertainment that you'd soon forget about. But if you only need a book about "black-ops" without many things to occupy your busy brain with, it's four. Anyway, give it a try.
Rating:
Summary: The Worst Book I have ever read
Review: This is the worst book ever. It is about 700 pages long and could be 150. There are too many stories. It owuld be better if it was just about the soldiers in the jungles of colombia. Clancy tells you everyones life story and there grandmothers life story. The only good thing about this book is that Clancy is good on what makes America good as a country.
Rating:
Summary: One of Clancy's Great Books
Review: Tom Clancy delivers in this poweful book, expertyly portraying America's war on drugs. After personal friends of the president are killed by drug runners, the president decides that the threat of drugs is a very clear and present danger. In order to deal with this problem, he decides to send over covert special operation teams fluent in Spanish, into Columbia to neautroulize the threat to the American people. Even though I thought the beginning was a little slow, the book picks up very fast. With interesting characters like Ding Chavez, Jonh Clark, and Jack Ryan the book is a very enjoyable read. This by far is one of my favorite books and I recomened this novel to any Clancy fan or anyone who enjoys a good suspensful book. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Superb plotting.
Review: Tom Clancy may get a little bogged down in details at times, making passages of the book difficult to read and follow, but the way he weaves multiple plots together makes for fascinating reading as they unfold. I also applaud Clancy's character building. It is challenging to create non-stereotyped characters in a military novel; after all, the military is pretty famous for depending on stereotyping. Clancy makes this work in his favor. I was disappointed at his overall treatment of women...terms such as stating that one of the new female ensigns on Panache is "as cute as a button...". or later when the pilot of CLAW communicates with Wegener and he thinks to himself "...who sounded like a girl....Christ, they were everywhere now." Other than Clancy's obvious sexist attitude towards women in military positions, the book makes for good reading. I give an overall rating of 3 stars. In order to attain 5, in my opinion, Clancy needs to be less sexist and the ending needed a little more impact. As it ends now, it is anticlimactic. It was also a little unbelievable that Cutter ended up as he did. I won't say more so as not to ruin it for those that have not read it yet. No book is perfect, and with the few faults this one has, it is definitely a recommend on my list.
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Summary: Riveting Story of Drugs War & Covert Military Introvention
Review: Great and sometime gruesome story starting with the horrid scene of the president's friend and family tortured and then murdured by a drug lord's thugs. The extreme method of payback by the drug lord that in this case is in South America set the stage for a President initiating a covert operation against the drug lord. He does this through the use of a crack special forces unit that works in the jungle virtually alone to accomplish their mission with only radio communications to high tech aerial support that pinpoints and hits targets with missles from far away. Into the midst of this political turmoil and covert operation is thrust Jack Ryan. From the initial murder scene that is hard to forget, to the Coast Guard cutter crew's uinique method of forging a confession to the dark political compromise that leaves the forces to survive on their own, the book never stops with fast paced adventure including Clancy's ever detailed but helpful explanation of the military support systems from ground troops to aerial support. The realism of drug wars, hard behind the scenes politics and detailed explanation of military high tech hardware makes this Clany's best book.
Rating:
Summary: Strong page-turner, but could be smoother
Review: I will not be the first to note that Clancy loves technical gadgets too much. I also find that sometimes sub-plot lines take too many pages to explore, I tried omitting the especially dull ones, and guess what - you still follow the plot perfectly, and the suspense does not suffer. Generally, a very strong book. You could do much worse at an airport bookshop.
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